Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

2010 discharge: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)

2011/2227(DEC)

PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, together with the Centre's replies.

CONTENT: in accordance with the tasks conferred on the Court of Auditors by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court presents to the European Parliament and to the Council, in the context of the discharge procedure, a Statement of Assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of each institution, body or agency of the EU, and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them, on the basis of an independent external audit.

This audit concerned, amongst others, the annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

In the Court's opinion, the Centre's Annual Accounts fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2010 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.

It considers that the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Centre for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

The report confirms that the Centre’s 2010 budget amounted to EUR 57.8 million and that the number of staff employed at the end of the year was 254.

The report also makes a series of observations on the budgetary and financial management of the Centre, accompanied by the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised as follows:

The Court’s observations:

  • financial and budgetary management: in 2010, an amount of EUR 15.6 million, equivalent to 27% of the total budget. For the Court, this high level of carry-forward, matched by a low level of accrued expenditure (EUR 5.5 million), is excessive and at odds with the budgetary principle of annuality;
  • recruitment: with regard to staff selection procedures, neither the thresholds that candidates had to meet in order to be invited to the interview nor those necessary to be put on the reserve list were fixed in advance. According to the Court, these practices put at risk the transparency of the recruitment procedures.

The Centre’s replies: T

  • the Centre notes that it has reduced the carry-forward of Title III — Operational expenditure by 10 %, compared to 2009. Nevertheless, the Centre acknowledges the necessity to further reduce the rate of carry-forward as much as it is possible;
  • the Centre has taken note of the Court’s observations and is reviewing its selection procedure to increase its transparency.

Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a summary of the Centre’s activities in 2010. This is focused on the following:

  • threats monitored using the threat tracking tool (TTT) and weekly threat reports on communicable diseases;
  • provision of support to epidemic intelligence for large mass-gathering events;
  • simulation exercises for testing and improving preparedness and response to communicable diseases;
  • implementation of a European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET);
  • thousands of visitors on ECDC web portal;
  • the Third European Antibiotic Awareness Day organised, with the participation of 36 countries;
  • integration into ECDC of 11 of the 17 dedicated surveillance networks at the end of 2010;
  • ECDC related articles published across 49 countries worldwide.